JonA

That inquiry is only valid if Jews at the time viewed YHWH as supremely powerful. What is the evidence that they held this view of their God? Look at the God of Genesis 2; the God of Genesis 7; and so forth from Genesis 2 to 11. Is this a God of 'supreme power'?

I don't see why the opinions folk had of GOD thousands of years ago should affect the opinions I hold of GOD; but it may be reason enough for other folk to alter their thoughts.

Ignorance? Laziness?

This is only one of the millions of reasons for declaring this story a fiction.

Made even less valid by the fact that there never was a Flood.

Anyone claiming they have proven the truth of the Babel story gives up all credentials.

Some concepts deserve serious attention, laborious study. Not this, however. It is clearly just not true. It is such an obvious fiction that there is no need to consider further arguments for its existence, especially, as you have already observed, given the failed nature of all the arguments so far.

Jon

Sarai

Very well put, Davidstarlingm. I suspect you're right about the linguistic aspect of the myth. Interestingly enough, the commentary I consulted mentions a ziggurat named Etemenanki that has been located and may be the source of the protest in the text. In any event, it does mention this as an exilic text whose apparent principal purpose was to pour scorn on the hated Babylonians, and advocate for a return to a supposedly idyllic past before kings and priests screwed everything up.

Sarai

I forgot: There is also mention of a Sumerian story of the confounding of tongues, but it doesn't give specifics.

davidstarlingm

Which is why it is extremely odd that this very supernatural story (languages being abruptly confused is not at all similar to any natural event) is reflected in multiple cultures around the world, particularly cultures (like those in South America) that would have had no transaction whatsoever with middle eastern cultures.

Anomalies like these provide good reason to expand our understanding of how religion has evolved.

shalak

Well I suppose there is no reason to continue to smack this story around.

I haven't actually gotten any books yet on the subject of biblical criticism from a stance of the Bible not being inspired but I was looking at getting some of Bart Ehrman's books. Would this be a good place for someone new to biblical criticism/skepticism to start or is there another author/source that I would be better served by getting?

I know I could just get everything but time and money are not infinite.

I also don't suppose there is an exhaustive source(preferably a scholarly book, or other scholarly source like journal articles) on most of the biblical topics that seeks to disprove their credibility/reliability? I know that on the Christian side there's a book called When Critics Ask (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Norman Geisler + Thomas Howe and probably a mountain of other writers. I haven't looked extensively in my house but so far it looks like my parents have a pretty big library full of mostly pro-bible being inspired etc sources so I probably don't have to buy a lot of those although if anyone knows of something recent that may be beneficial I would appreciate it.

After looking into this issue broadly over the past few days there is a lot of "rabbit holes" like looking at the tower of Babel have fell down. I suppose I am not sure what direction I should really head in this point as far as continuing my inquiry goes. At this point I am pretty skeptical of the Bible but I have mostly only been reading things that are against the Bible being accurate/inspired. Of course now I am also running into a group of people who get around a lot of the issues by taking a non-literal view of the Bible. The only thing I have against that of course is deciding what the authors intended to be literal and what they didn't.

I am not talking about things like visions/dreams that are intended to be symbolic or revelations. A lot of non-literalists I think called Noah a story used to make a point etc. I still don't see a strong case for it though. In addition to that you have people who are both pro-evolution and pro-bible but unless somehow in Hebrew the word days allows for the possibility of millions of years I am not sure how in the world that is consistent.

At this point I am getting knocked around to different issues because I feel like I find more and more issues every day to investigate so it is a bit maddening. Keep in mind for most of my life before a few days ago I took a very literal/trusting view of scripture so my reality is doing a bit of unfolding right now. However I also believe the truth is the only thing worth investigating so if this journey lead's me to agnosticism/atheism so be it.

Sarai

Personally, I think Bart Ehrman is a great start, especially for someone from a Christian background. An added plus is that you can usually find some decent copies used on Amazon. I paid about $4 each (including shipping) for 2 of his books.

Regards,
Sarai

davidstarlingm

Fitting millions of years into Genesis 1 isn't a horribly hard thing to do; the best exposition of the Framework Hypothesis that I've heard does a fairly good job of showing that day 1 is connected to day 4, day 2 is connected to day 5, and day 3 is connected to day 6 in an overall fashion that could easily reflect a non-chronological narrative.

The larger issue, as you pointed out, is the whole Noah's flood business. Genesis is repeatedly and painfully clear that the flood was a major global event. So either most geological strata and fossils are all the result of the flood, or the flood didn't happen as recorded in Genesis.

Atheos

Shalak, I was once a church of Christ preacher (16 years) so I can appreciate where you're coming from perhaps as well as anyone here. Welcome to the forum.

JonA brings up a very important point when considering the origin of this myth and other origin myths that were included in the opening pages of the Judaeo/Christian bible. It's easy for folks today to think that people have always had the same notion of who "God" was. That's just not the case. Yahweh grew considerably over the centuries. In the Pentateuch he was a superman walking around in the garden with Adam and Eve. It took him six days to create the world and he rested on the seventh day. He walked about the Israelite camp at night getting pissed because folks neglected to cover their turds (Deut 23:13-14). He mooned Moses (Exodus 33:22). He was little more than a tribal war-god. Petty, vengeful, barbaric. He evolved into a much more noble and spiritual concept later.

Funny thing, the I can still remember the night when I was reading my bible before bedtime as I often did. I was still a dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalist / literalist. After reading the "tower of Babel" story I lay there troubled for some time, allowing my thoughts to go to a forbidden place, trying to rationalize the disconnect. That was the very night I started down the path that led me here.

davidstarlingm

You have my most earnest sympathies.

Of all the Christians I have ever tried to have a rational discussion with, Church of Christ and Independent Baptist were by orders of magnitude the most difficult and closed-minded. Congratulations for coming out of a CoC pastorship with your intellect intact (although I would hesitantly posit that you swung a little farther than necessary, lol ).

Toto

shalak: you might find a lot of material online at the Internet Infidels library that would help:

www.infidels.org

shalak

I checked out some stuff from infidels but I will definitely revisit that site. This issue has been particularly unsettling for me as I would essentially have to form a new existence if this issue keeps spiraling towards what it is right now... I am already highly skeptical of scripture and the second anything may be reconciled I have 5 other issues to deal with X_X. It is more then maddening.

It is comforting to find other people though who ran through the same war zone I am trying to navigate right now. I have started topics on about 4 different skeptic forums as I am trying to harness the wonderful capabilities of the interwebz:P

One of the things that I am REALLY wanting to find, call me stupid for it if you will, is someone who is pro-Christianity + the Bible who answers the literal mountain of issues that keep piling up. I will mention one of the newcomer issues and I am sure I will learn from your responses.

The first issue I want to mention is specifically with the idea of Theistic biblical evolution. I will frame the issue as I see it and maybe more light can be shed on it.

In the Old Testament in Genesis chapter 5 we have the Genealogy from Adam to Noah; Genesis chapter 11 shows Shem to Abraham. If you turn to Matthew in the New Testament and ignore the apparent inconsistency between the genealogy when compared with Luke(sigh), it gives you Christ's Genealogy from Abraham to Joseph. I did not bother to count up all the years because quite frankly I have done enough cursing lately. The point is these genealogies are one of the things used by creationists to substantiate the young earth claim but apparently does not cause any heartburn for a theistic evolutionist.

My problem with that is assuming the young creationists use the genealogy and come up with about 4000 to 6000 years from Adam to Christ that means human's as we know it have only been in existence/evolved to their present state for a lot less time then science shows..... I guess my question for that is how in the world is that consistent? Or am I being ignorant and ignoring some relevant fact?

Even if you take a non-literal view of the Genesis creation account.... The Genealogies can be used to get a pretty rough approximation of mankind's existence from Adam until now. I guess Adam is not the first created man in a theistic evolution standpoint but rather the first evolved man? Even so don't we have a lot of evidence for more advanced forms of humanity that far exceed 6000 years?